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Boeing strike about to enter 2nd week

Scott Carson, president and chief executive of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said Friday the company is “open to finding a way” to end a strike by the Machinists union that will enter its second week on Saturday.

The strike by some 27,000 Machinists forced Boeing to stop making commercial jets at its factories in the Puget Sound area, and will further delay its 787 Dreamliner.

“Today we are coping with the difficulties and setbacks of the IAM work stoppage,” Carson said in a message to all Boeing managers and human resources employees in Washington, Oregon and Kansas. The union represents members in each of those states, but the majority work in the Puget Sound area.

“But keep in mind that we have an excellent contingency plan in place, thanks to the dedicated efforts of a knowledgeable and highly professional team. I extend my sincerest gratitude to that team and to all of you who are implementing the plan at your work sites…”

Although Boeing has said it will not assemble more jets during the strike, it is in the process of trying to deliver planes that were completed or nearly completed before the strike began.

“Your efforts have ensured that we have safe and secure workplaces, that we continue to support our customers’ fleets, that we are able to deliver airplanes in the latter stages of ticketing, and that we are maintaining support of critical programs,” Carson said. “In other words, you are accomplishing the work statement priorities of the contingency plan, and you are doing so under very difficult circumstances.”

The strike began at 12:01 a.m. Sept. 6, after last-ditch talks with a federal mediator failed.

The union’s last strike, in 2005, lasted 28 days.

“Rest assured that we remain open to finding a way to get our whole team working again,” Carson said. “We are committed to reaching an agreement that rewards our employees for their hard work while enabling Boeing to remain the industry leader. It is deeply disappointing that the union turned down a truly outstanding offer that balanced the needs of our employees with ensuring our long-term competitiveness, but Chairman Jim McNerney and I, together with all of the company’s business-unit leaders, continue to have regular dialog on this matter, and we are in total accord on our approach to negotiations.”

Carson noted that the union that represents Boeing’s engineers and technical workers delivered its initial proposal to the company Wednesday.

The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, or SPEEA, represents about 21,000 white-collar workers at Boeing. Its three-year contract with Boeing ends in December.

“Our engineers and technical employees have done a superb job, and we look forward to meeting with the SPEEA negotiating team to discuss how to share our success as we have done in the past and preserve our ability to compete in the marketplace,” Carson said.

But SPEEA is already talking tough. It said outsourcing of jobs and work will be a major issue in the upcoming contract talks. Outsourcing is also one of the issues that Boeing and the striking Machinists union remain far apart on.

“Boeing could be facing back to back strikes,” Ray Goforth, SPEEA’s executive director, told Bloomberg news last week.

On another matter, Carson mentioned the decision Wednesday by the Defense Department to cancel the tanker competition and allow the next administration to start over.

“Boeing welcomes this development because we believe it will provide an opportunity to conduct a thorough and open competition,” Carson said.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.